CHAPTER 1
"Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared: The worst is wordly loss
thou canst unfold:--Say, is my kingdom lost?"
--Shakespeare
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that
the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before
the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious
boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces
of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European
who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling
against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes
of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage
in a more martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and
self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to overcome
every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess
of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might
claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood
to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy
of the distant monarchs of Europe.
Perhaps no district throughout the wide extent of the intermediate
frontiers can furnish a livelier picture of the cruelty and fierceness
of the savage warfare of those periods than the country which lies
between the head waters of the Hudson and the adjacent lakes.
The facilities which nature had there offered to the march of the
combatants were too obvious to be neglected. The lengthened sheet of
the Champlain stretched from the frontiers of Canada, deep within the
borders of the neighboring province of New York, forming a natural
passage across half the distance that the French were compelled to
master in order to strike their enemies. Near its southern
termination, it received the contributions of another lake, whose
waters were so limpid as to have been exclusively selected by the
Jesuit missionaries to perform the typical purification of baptism,
and to obtain for it the title of lake "du Saint Sacrement." The less
zealous English thought they conferred a sufficient honor on its
unsullied fountains, when they bestowed the name of their reigning
prince, the second of the house of Hanover. The two united to rob the
untutored possessors of its wooded scenery of their native right to
perpetuate its original appellation of "Horican."*
* As each nation of the Indians had its language or its dialect, they
usually gave different names to the same places, though nearly all of
their appellations were descriptive of the object. Thus a literal
translation of the name of this beautiful sheet of water, used by the
tribe that dwelt on its banks, would be "The Tail of the Lake." Lake
George, as it is vulgarly, and now, indeed, legally, called, forms a
sort of tail to Lake Champlain, when viewed on the map. Hence, the
name.
Winding its way among countless islands, and imbedded in mountains,
the "holy lake" extended a dozen leagues still further to the south.
With the high plain that there interposed itself to the further
passage of the water,
commenced a portage of as many miles, which conducted the adventurer
to the banks of the Hudson, at a point where, with the usual
obstructions of the rapids, or rifts, as they were then termed in the
language of the country, the river became navigable to the tide.
While, in the pursuit of their daring plans of annoyance, the restless
enterprise of the French even attempted the distant and difficult
gorges of the Alleghany, it may easily be imagined that their
proverbial acuteness would not overlook the natural advantages of the
district we have just described. It became, emphatically, the bloody
arena, in which most of the battles for the mastery of the colonies
were contested. Forts were erected at the different points that
commanded the facilities of the route, and were taken and retaken,
razed and rebuilt, as victory alighted on the hostile banners. While
the husbandman shrank back from the dangerous passes, within the safer
boundaries of the more ancient settlements, armies larger than those
that had often disposed of the scepters of the mother countries, were
seen to bury themselves in these forests, whence they rarely returned
but in skeleton bands, that were haggard with care or dejected by
defeat. Though the arts of peace were unknown to this fatal region,
its forests were alive with men; its shades and glens rang with the
sounds of martial music, and the echoes of its mountains threw back
the laugh, or repeated the wanton cry, of many a gallant and reckless
youth, as he hurried by them, in the noontide of his spirits, to
slumber in a long night of forgetfulness.
It was in this scene of strife and bloodshed that the incidents we
shall attempt to relate occurred, during the third year of the war
which England and France last waged for the possession of a country
that neither was destined to
retain.
The imbecility of her military leaders abroad, and the fatal want of
energy in her councils at home, had lowered the character of Great
Britain from the proud elevation on which it had been placed by the
talents and enterprise of her former warriors and statesmen. No longer
dreaded by her enemies, her servants were fast losing the confidence
of self-respect. In this mortifying abasement, the colonists, though
innocent of her imbecility, and too humble to be the agents of her
blunders, were but the natural participators. They had recently seen a
chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they
had blindly believed invincible--an army led by a chief who had been
selected from a crowd of trained warriors, for his rare military
endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians,
and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a
Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself, with the
steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of
Christendom.* A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected
disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand
fanciful and imaginary dangers. The alarmed colonists believed that
the yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that
issued from the interminable forests of the west. The terrific
character of their merciless enemies increased immeasurably the
natural horrors of warfare. Numberless recent massacres were still
vivid in their recollections; nor was there any ear in the provinces
so deaf as not to have drunk in with avidity the narrative of some
fearful tale of midnight murder, in which the natives of the forests
were the principal and barbarous actors. As the credulous and excited
traveler related the hazardous chances of the wilderness, the blood of
the timid curdled with terror, and mothers cast anxious glances even
at those children which slumbered within the security of the largest
towns. In short, the magnifying influence of fear began to set at
naught the calculations of reason, and to render those who should have
remembered their manhood, the slaves of the basest passions. Even the
most confident and the stoutest hearts began to think the issue of the
contest was becoming doubtful; and that abject class was hourly
increasing in numbers, who thought they foresaw all the possessions of
the English crown in America subdued by their Christian foes, or laid
waste by the inroads of their relentless allies.
* Washington, who, after uselessly admonishing the European general of
the danger into which he was heedlessly running, saved the remnants of
the British army, on this occasion, by his decision and courage. The
reputation earned by Washington in this battle was the principal cause
of his being selected to command the American armies at a later day.
It is a circumstance worthy of observation, that while all America
rang with his well-merited reputation, his name does not occur in any
European account of the battle; at least the author has searched for
it without success. In this manner does the mother country absorb even
the fame, under that system of rule.
When, therefore, intelligence was received at the fort which covered
the southern termination of the portage between the Hudson and the
lakes, that Montcalm had been seen moving up the Champlain, with an
army "numerous as the leaves on the trees," its truth was admitted
with more of the craven reluctance of fear than with the stern joy
that a warrior should feel, in finding an enemy within reach of his
blow. The news had been brought, toward the decline of a day in
midsummer, by an Indian runner, who also bore an urgent request from
Munro, the commander of a work on the shore of the "holy lake," for a
speedy and powerful reinforcement. It has already been mentioned that
the distance between these two posts was less than five leagues. The
rude path, which originally formed their line of communication, had
been widened for the passage of wagons; so that the distance which had
been traveled by the son of the forest in two hours, might easily be
effected by a detachment of troops, with their necessary baggage,
between the rising and setting of a summer sun. The loyal servants of
the British crown had given to one of these forest-fastnesses the name
of William Henry, and to the other that of Fort Edward, calling each
after a favorite prince of the reigning family. The veteran Scotchman
just named held the first, with a regiment of regulars and a few
provincials; a force really by far too small to make head against the
formidable power that Montcalm was leading to the foot of his earthen
mounds. At the latter, however, lay General Webb, who commanded the
armies of the king in the northern provinces, with a body of more than
five thousand men. By uniting the several detachments of his command,
this officer might have arrayed nearly double that number of
combatants against the enterprising Frenchman, who had ventured so far
from his reinforcements, with an army but little superior in numbers.
But under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and
men appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable
antagonists, within their works, than to resist the progress of their
march, by emulating the successful example of the French at Fort du
Quesne, and striking a blow on their advance.
After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a
rumor was spread through the entrenched camp, which stretched along
the margin of the Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of
the fort itself, that a
chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to depart, with the dawn,
for William Henry, the post at the northern extremity of the portage.
That which at first was only rumor, soon became certainty, as orders
passed from the quarters of the commander-in-chief to the several
corps he had selected for this service, to prepare for their speedy
departure. All doubts as to the intention of Webb now vanished, and an
hour or two of hurried footsteps and anxious faces succeeded. The
novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding his own
preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered
zeal; while the more practiced veteran made his arrangements with a
deliberation that scorned every appearance of haste; though his sober
lineaments and anxious eye sufficiently betrayed that he had no very
strong professional relish for the, as yet, untried and dreaded
warfare of the wilderness. At length the sun set in a flood of glory,
behind the distant western hills, and as darkness drew its veil around
the secluded spot the sounds of preparation diminished; the last light
finally disappeared from the log cabin of some officer; the trees cast
their deeper shadows over the mounds and the rippling stream, and a
silence soon pervaded the camp, as deep as that which reigned in the
vast forest by which it was environed.
According to the orders of the preceding night, the heavy sleep of the
army was broken by the rolling of the warning drums, whose rattling
echoes were heard issuing, on the damp morning air, out of every vista
of the woods, just as day began to draw the shaggy outlines of some
tall pines of the vicinity, on the opening brightness of a soft and
cloudless eastern sky. In an instant the whole camp was in motion; the
meanest soldier arousing from his lair to witness the departure of his
comrades, and to share in the excitement and incidents of the hour.
The simple array of the chosen band was soon completed. While the
regular and trained hirelings of the king marched with haughtiness to
the right of the line, the less pretending colonists took their
humbler position on its left, with a docility that long practice had
rendered easy. The scouts departed; strong guards preceded and
followed the lumbering vehicles that bore the baggage; and before the
gray light of the morning was mellowed by the rays of the sun, the
main body of the combatants wheeled into column, and left the
encampment with a show of high military bearing, that served to drown
the slumbering apprehensions of many a novice, who was now about to
make his first essay in arms. While in view of their admiring
comrades, the same proud front and ordered array was observed, until
the notes of their fifes growing fainter in distance, the forest at
length appeared to swallow up the living mass which had slowly entered
its bosom.
The deepest sounds of the retiring and invisible column had ceased to
be borne on the breeze to the listeners, and the latest straggler had
already disappeared in pursuit; but there still remained the signs of
another departure, before a log cabin of unusual size and
accommodations, in front of which those sentinels paced their rounds,
who were known to guard the person of the English general. At this
spot were gathered some half dozen horses, caparisoned in a manner
which showed that two, at least, were destined to bear the persons of
females, of a rank that it was not usual to meet so far in the wilds
of the country. A third wore trappings and arms of an officer of the
staff; while the rest, from the plainness of the housings, and the
traveling mails with which they were encumbered, were evidently fitted
for the reception of as many menials, who were, seemingly, already
waiting the pleasure of those they served. At a respectful distance
from this unusual show, were gathered divers groups of curious idlers;
some admiring the blood and bone of the high-mettled military charger,
and others gazing at the preparations, with the dull wonder of vulgar
curiosity. There was one man, however, who, by his countenance and
actions, formed a marked exception to those who composed the latter
class of spectators, being neither idle, nor
seemingly very ignorant.
The person of this individual was to the last degree ungainly, without
being in any particular manner deformed. He had all the bones and
joints of other men, without any of their proportions. Erect, his
stature surpassed that of his fellows; though seated, he appeared
reduced within the ordinary limits of the race. The same contrariety
in his members seemed to exist throughout the whole man. His head was
large; his shoulders narrow; his arms long and dangling; while his
hands were small, if not delicate. His legs and thighs were thin,
nearly to emaciation, but of extraordinary length; and his knees would
have been considered tremendous, had they not been outdone by the
broader foundations on which this false superstructure of blended
human orders was so profanely reared. The ill-assorted and injudicious
attire of the individual only served to render his awkwardness more
conspicuous. A sky-blue coat, with short and broad skirts and low
cape, exposed a long, thin neck, and longer and thinner legs, to the
worst animadversions of the evil-disposed. His nether garment was a
yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches
of knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use.
Clouded cotton stockings, and shoes, on one of the latter of which was
a plated spur, completed the costume of the lower extremity of this
figure, no curve or angle of which was concealed, but, on the other
hand, studiously exhibited, through the vanity or simplicity of its
owner.
From beneath the flap of an enormous pocket of a soiled vest of
embossed silk, heavily ornamented with tarnished silver lace,
projected an instrument, which, from being seen in such martial
company, might have been easily mistaken for some mischievous and
unknown implement of war. Small as it was, this uncommon engine had
excited the curiosity of most of the Europeans in the camp, though
several of the provincials were seen to handle it, not only without
fear, but with the utmost familiarity. A large, civil cocked hat, like
those worn by clergymen within the last thirty years, surmounted the
whole, furnishing dignity to a good-natured and somewhat vacant
countenance, that apparently needed such artificial aid, to support
the gravity of some high and extraordinary trust.
While the common herd stood aloof, in deference to the quarters of
Webb, the figure we have described stalked into the center of the
domestics, freely expressing his censures or commendations on the
merits of the horses, as by chance they displeased or satisfied his
judgment.
"This beast, I rather conclude, friend, is not of home raising, but is
from foreign lands, or perhaps from the little island itself over the
blue water?" he said, in a voice as remarkable for the softness and
sweetness of its tones, as was his person for its rare proportions; "I
may speak of these things, and be no braggart; for I have been down at
both havens; that which is situate at the mouth of Thames, and is
named after the capital of Old England, and that which is called
'Haven', with the addition of the word 'New'; and have seen the scows
and brigantines collecting their droves, like the gathering to the
ark, being outward bound to the Island of Jamaica, for the purpose of
barter and traffic in four-footed animals; but never before have I
beheld a beast which verified the true scripture war-horse like this:
'He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength; he goeth on
to meet the armed men. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he
smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the
shouting' It would seem that the stock of the horse of Israel had
descended to our own time; would it not, friend?"
Receiving no reply to this extraordinary appeal, which in truth, as it
was delivered with the vigor of full and sonorous tones, merited some
sort of notice, he who had thus sung forth the language of the holy
book turned to the silent figure to whom he had unwittingly addressed
himself, and found a new and more powerful subject of admiration in
the object that encountered his gaze. His eyes fell on the still,
upright, and rigid form of the "Indian runner," whohad borne to the
camp the unwelcome tidings of the preceding evening. Although in a
state of perfect repose, and apparently disregarding, with
characteristic stoicism, the excitement and bustle around him, there
was a sullen fierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage, that was
likely to arrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than
those which now scanned him, in unconcealed amazement. The native bore
both the tomahawk and knife of his tribe; and yet his appearance was
not altogether that of a warrior. On the contrary, there was an air of
neglect about his person, like that which might have proceeded from
great and recent exertion, which he had not yet found leisure to
repair. The colors of the war-paint had blended in dark confusion
about his fierce countenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments
still more savage and repulsive than if art had attempted an effect
which had been thus produced by chance. His eye, alone, which
glistened like a fiery star amid lowering clouds, was to be seen in
its state of native wildness. For a single instant his searching and
yet wary glance met the wondering look of the other, and then changing
its direction, partly in cunning, and partly in disdain, it remained
fixed, as if penetrating the distant air.
It is impossible to say what unlooked-for remark this short and silent
communication, between two such singular men, might have elicited from
the white man, had not his active curiosity been again drawn to other
objects. A general movement among the domestics, and a low sound of
gentle voices, announced the approach of those whose presence alone
was wanted to enable the cavalcade to move. The simple admirer of the
war-horse instantly fell back to a low, gaunt, switch-tailed mare,
that was unconsciously gleaning the faded herbage of the camp nigh by;
where, leaning with one elbow on the blanket that concealed an apology
for a saddle, he became a spectator of the departure, while a foal was
quietly making its morning repast, on the opposite side of the same
animal.
A young man, in the dress of an officer, conducted to their steeds two
females, who, as it was apparent by their dresses, were prepared to
encounter the fatigues of a journey in the woods. One, and she was the
more juvenile in her appearance, though both were young, permitted
glimpses of her dazzling complexion, fair golden hair, and bright blue
eyes, to be caught, as she artlessly suffered the morning air to blow
aside the green veil which descended low from her beaver.
The flush which still lingered above the pines in the western sky was
not more bright nor delicate than the bloom on her cheek; nor was the
opening day more cheering than the animated smile which she bestowed
on the youth, as he assisted her into the saddle. The other, who
appeared to share equally in the attention of the young officer,
concealed her charms from the gaze of the soldiery with a care that
seemed better fitted to the experience of four or five additional
years. It could be seen, however, that her person, though molded with
the same exquisite proportions, of which none of the graces were lost
by the traveling dress she wore, was rather fuller and more mature
than that of her companion.
No sooner were these females seated, than their attendant sprang
lightly into the saddle of the war-horse, when the whole three bowed
to Webb, who in courtesy, awaited their parting on the threshold of
his cabin and turning their horses' heads, they proceeded at a slow
amble, followed by their train, toward the northern entrance of the
encampment. As they traversed that short distance, not a voice was
heard among them; but a slight exclamation proceeded from the younger
of the females, as the Indian runner glided by her, unexpectedly, and
led the way along the military road in her
front. Though this sudden and startling movement of the Indian
produced no sound from the other, in the surprise her veil also was
allowed to open its folds, and betrayed an indescribable look of pity,
admiration, and horror, as her dark eye followed the easy motions of
the savage. The tresses of this lady were shining and black, like the
plumage of the raven. Her complexion was not brown, but it rather
appeared charged with the color of the rich blood,
that seemed ready to burst its bounds. And yet there was neither
coarseness nor want of shadowing in a countenance that was exquisitely
regular, and dignified and surpassingly beautiful. She smiled, as if
in pity at her own momentary forgetfulness, discovering by the act a
row of teeth that would have shamed the purest ivory; when, replacing
the veil, she bowed her face, and rode in silence, like one whose
thoughts were abstracted from the scene around her.
